Barclays bank and systematic risk

If it goes pop, the uk government will bail it out. I don't have figures to hand, but the number of SME businesses using them will be significant. So whilst there could be a short hiccup or two (see RBS in 2013 I think) they won't be going anywhere.

Try typing "Barclays business bank account review" in Yahoogle............finding a score  above 1* is on a par with rocking horse s*!*

It is precisely because the failure of Barclays would pose too much of a systematic risk to the whole financial system that it will always be bailed out one way or another by the government to protect deposit holders and avoid a full scale bank run and loss in confidence.

Even if Barclays were allowed to fail, investor money held in client accounts would be covered by FSCS providing each individual investor with £50k protection (as long as client money had been properly segregated and maintained in the pooled client account).

Overall I would be far more concerned with a platform failure versus the collapse of Barclays or any other of the big banks, the risk of the later imo being immaterial compared to the former.  Given the explosive growth in P2P loans, my biggest fear is a ponzi type fraud which could easily be perpetuated when net deposits are rising so significantly and expected to keep doing so.  Regulation of the sector is still very light - most firms don't even require a statutory audit which would give at least give a base level of confidence.  The biggest P2P platform failure to date (outside China), Trustbuddy last year was effectively due to ponzi type activity early on in the platform's life.  The Madoff fraud shows how it is possible to pull off a gigantic fraud, in that case by a established, well known and respected individual using investment manager that was subject to audit and whose activity were overseen by several US regulators.......   

Funnily enough, I've operated with a basic Santander business current account for 13 years and have had no complaints at all. It's entirely free for the limited services I use; basically just Faster Payments in and out, which are processed instantly 24-7. Both their website and mobile app are competent and I can do all that I need to do without ever calling them (touches everything made of wood in the vicinity).

That'll be the Santander who, after several years of allowing us to operate the M-i-L's account under power of attorney, suddenly decided that they knew nothing of any PoA, and then took months to accept that actually - yes - it did exist...?

Still, not as bad as Barclays in that respect. Their particular brand of wuckfittery over the PoA got as far as the Chief Exec's office. Then there was the saga of the F-i-L's safe deposit box...

Anything any bank can cock up, Barclays can cock up better...

Agreed.  I've been with First Direct for 15 odd years now and their service has never been anything other than excellent.  Which I can't say about any other bank (or utility company, or local government service, or ..... well, anything really).